After my language
class, for three months from November through to the end of
January I picked up the S7 to Ahrensfelde at Alexanderplatz. The
first week I ‘plakateered’ after the lesson, and once there was a delay on the
tracks. Every other time however, I got on the train at exactly 21:47. Though
I would bemoan the lack of trains running through
Berlin (if I missed the 21:47 I would have to wait twenty minutes until the
next one came) the efficiency and reliability of the system is striking and
would have gone largely unnoticed by me if it wasn’t for my evening lessons. It
enabled me to time my routine to a T.
Yearning for bed,
after tidying up the classrooms I would shuffle down the stairwell in my
giant Easter-duck puffa-jacket laden with 6 or 7 small plastics bags of
rubbish. Out into the frozen car park I would gingerly walk across the slippery
tarmac and chuck the bags into a high skip at the back of the building. I
would turn back into the building and pass the grumpy night-watchman at
reception. Back in the cold on the other side I would light a cigarette. I
would then check my phone for the time - always between 9.30 and
9.35. Through snow and a bitter wind I would walk to Alexanderplatz station
and then finish the cigarette in a little alcove, using a little groove in
the wall as an ashtray, collecting a week’s worth of my after-lesson
cigarettes, until someone cleared it out at the weekend. For the first
couple of Thursdays I would treat myself to a little baguette from a
friendly lad at the kiosk on the platform which at this time were on ‘Angebote’
and sold for 1€ or so. I had to forego this treat as my budget began
to tighten once more. I would stamp my feet and pace the platform for a
couple of minutes, still thinking of bed. And then the train would
come.
There was a man I
saw each day on this trip who knew the ins and outs of the train
times much better than I. This man was a bottle collector and looked very
similar to my dear teacher Gunther, and I wouldn’t put it past the loopy
teacher to be subsidising his salary by collecting ‘Pfand’ in the
evenings. Pfand is the money you receive from supermarkets and
some bars by in exchange certain (but most) glass and plastic
bottles. The Pfand system nicely complements the throngs in Berlin –
both vagrants and punters – drinking beers on the streets each day. You will never see
a bottle lying forlorn on the side of the pavement for long. Indeed,
whenever you stand one of your own that you have
finished next to a bin it is only a matter of moments before someone
shuffles forward and scoops it up. The collector would have likely
been watching you with hawkish eyes as they waited for you to finish. Some will
feign indifference, but most will come up and ask you if they can take it while
you are still drinking, and Turkish women will send their children.
Of course, the
person who takes your bottle away may well have simply been someone on their
way back from work, who saw an empty bottle and being a thrifty individual knew
that it is only so many 2cence pieces that make up a euro. For it is a bustling
system that almost everyone in Berlin is active in, whether in drinking the
beer or collecting the bottles. Standing at a station waiting for a train I
often saw smart looking middle aged gents with greying hair and serious
expressions spying an empty bottle of Sternie on a platform
bench. They will march up to it, vigorously shake out
the last drips into a bin and then place it carefully into
a bag, perhaps clinking next to others he has already collected. For
these types, who wore tailed suits and shining shoes, I wondered whether it was
a German magnetism to order that led them to taking part; a sense of tidiness,
or repugnance of waste. Or perhaps, once you start, there is a sort of thrill
in watching you crate back home fill up with bottles until it is ready to be
taken down to the shops.
There are the more
pathetic types though. Regularly you see old ladies looking like
your own grandmother back at home, peddling along the streets with a
little torch in their hand no bigger than a lighter, peering into
bins, sticking their arms into their ashen, gaping mouths and feeling around for
what the torch can’t reveal. Then there are the pros who warrant
admiration not pity. Everyone is a scavenger of some sort in
Berlin, right down to the sparrows that hop towards you with their
beaks held wide open, but some of these Pfand collectors
were the most impressive of the lot, walking down the street at the
end of the day with two large IKEA bags brimming with plastic bottles, or
a supermarket trolley full of clinking beer bottles.
The man I saw on
the train each evening would race down each cabin, his eyes darting over
and under each seat, down to each corner of the carriage and at the hands of
each passenger’s hands to see what he can find. So engrossed in his
work he was, unless someone directly handed him a bottle, his eyes didn’t meet
any of ours. Though I would have seen him around 70 times that winter, if
I had one day handed him a bottle and his eyes had come up to mine while he
bobbed his head in thanks, I don’t think he would have ever recognised me. Most
days he would be wearing Nike tracksuit bottoms that were a little too small
for him revealing his socked ankles; white trainers and a faded and scraggly
wax cotton hunting jacket. Two bags of bottles would be slung over his
shoulder. He was fast, nipping in and out of each carriage as the train
came to a halt at each station. Before the train stopped he would
have a moment of respite, breathing heavily, as he waited by the doors, his
thumb poised over the button to press for them to open. For some reason it
greatly cheered me to see him each evening, though I sorry he had to work so
hard. While I was at this point close to bed, I wondered how late he would
be travelling back and forth on the S-Bahn. How long had he been doing it
for? How much did he make? Were his family out doing it too? At Raoul-Wallenbergstraße I
would get out and so would he, rushing across the platform to the waiting S7
going back to Alexanderplatz and beyond that to Zoologisher Garten,
and then to Wannsee. He had to race across the platform to go through
the doors of the other train before they flashed red and closed. If he
didn’t make it that would mean waiting 20 minutes at Raoul-Wallenbergstraße for
the next one. A delay in the trains would be much bigger inconvenience for
him than for me. Thankfully, us being in Germany, such a thing was a rarity. It
really is a wonderful system: the efficiency of Germans complementing the
indulgence of Berliners.
*
The stiff
stuttering lock clicked open and into the hall I walked. Compared to the bitter
chill outside, the heat when entering the flat when I finally arrived home was
almost stifling. The small hallway was dark and full of that now familiar
smell of stale smoke and rabbit bedding and muck. Taking my headphones off I
hear voices in the sitting room. When Mila was out the door to the sitting
room was closed meaning that it was pitch black in the hall and I would have to
stumble through the darkness to find the door knob. When visitors came and left
the door open, the little rabbit would make a dash for freedom. Everyone
present was then called away from whatever activity they were embarked upon,
armed with broom, or frying pan, or curtain rail to extract the deaf rabbit
from the depths under Red’s bed.
In the darkness I
heard Red’s voice calling my name. I found my way to the living room door passed reeking bin bags and
piles of trash thrown out of Red’s bedroom and into the sitting room. In the
sitting room it was cooler, one window open to release the smoke form cigarette
and joint that hovered in the air. The television was on and jabberings,
some brightly-coloured German entertainment show. Both girls
were on the sofa: Smokie smiled up at me, looking tired but sweet and
warmly glowing in a hoody and big, Indian yoga trousers. Red had a
slightly cynical expression on her face and she eyed me coming into the room, completely
at odds with her high-pitched call to me. She smiled too though,
slightly, and barked at me, ‘We have food here. But we have started
without you.’
On the table in front
of them, amongst mountaining ashtrays, candles, kinder egg treasures that
Red’s mother collected for us and Red’s own glass tea pot sat on
three glass cups with candles inside. The pot was always full with luminous
fruit tea, but was rarely warm. Amongst it now were dishes of
chicken, cheese, avocado, and salad, tomato and source and black beans. This
table was never tidy and never clean, and thinking back on my time in that
flat, after Red and Smokie themselves, it is this table littered with
Red’s delicacies and accoutrements to life that comes to mind first.
Red told me that I
should put two wraps into the oven. When she saw me faffing around with the
wrong nobs she came in and threw them in herself. I poured myself a glass of
wine and offered some to Smokie who already had a tall glass of Sekt.
There was one opposite Red as well, but this was untouched as she sipped on her
tea. She asked me,
‘How was your day,
honey?’
‘Long and hard. I
started doing more marketing today-‘
‘O I think your
wraps are ready already. You work too much, honey. You know how to do it? If
you want more avocado we have more avocado. Und kannst du …. die ….’
I feasted on the
food sitting on the ground at the table. ‘This is so nice of you both. Every
night you are doing this for me. I feel I should-‘
‘Oh but I told you
both when I first met you that I always make too much food. That is just what I
have always done. Ask Henri.’
And so I ate and
drank, while they drunk and smoked, and then I smoked too and ate some more
before Red brought Bumblebee and Calimero out and tipped the contents
of the salad bowls onto the floor for them to tuck into.
‘You work too much
Bertie. I think one day you will make a heart attack for yourself.
I was aware
that I had a tendency to overwork in Liverpool; not
necessarily with corresponding success or a plethora or results, but simply
because I found sitting and doing nothing hard. I could enjoy on one level, but
there was always a persuasive and unrelenting little voice inside me
that said I should be doing such constructive, whether it was reading,
writing, learning a language, anything… In Berlin I came to see that lot of
people didn’t work people were always sitting about in cafés and bars, not only
young expats like myself, but Turkish men, young and old, drinking coffees and tea
from small cups outside Späties, and bakeries, smoking and talking;
vagrants in parks and hipsters balancing on their bikes.
Berlin is of course
cheap, and the students I met seemed to live like kings. Those unemployed (whether
they were from Germany or not) could take advantage of the generous arbeitsloss geld after
having worked for a bit. I had always derided the fears of ‘benefit
tourism’ within the EU, that David Cameron and UKIP are
always warning against. Yet here I was witnessing it. No doubt, I am sure, that
the majority who took this money came with the intention to work, and
undoubtedly had worked, but their choice to go unemployed to work on their
own ‘projects’ made me uneasy. I thought: You find a way to make your art,
around your life, that is part of its struggle, and you take from life
what you can, you take for the drone of the office, somehow, a drive to create
your art. But you have to tackle that life, and come out the other side of
it. If it is worth it, it will prevail. We are not working 18
hour shifts in sweat shops, after all. A Mozart or James Joyce in Berlin will be a
Mozart or James Joyce no matter what. Don’t take money to
create shit art. So many artists, so little art, people always say, and they
have a point.
Maybe I am being
too harsh. And maybe if it wasn’t the way it was, much of the creativity and activities
infuse Berlin, wouldn’t be here, if it wasn’t for the officially unemployed and
their projects.
Every young expat
in Berlin should have a project on the go. In Berlin a ‘project’ is what
you call the bits of work you do that you want to do. It is creative, and can
be seen as the little steps towards the career you want to have. Something like painting,
comedy, writing; making jewellery, recording a CD, directing a short. A
lot of people have a handful of part-time jobs and in the time that is left
they run music nights, or a comedy show, or help put on Shakespeare for
children. These projects are undoubtedly are a big part of
making this city what it is. They also, of course, give value to the lives of
those carrying them out. It gives more meaning to getting drunk on cheap beer
in parks, getting fucked on drugs and dancing from Friday until Monday. It
is the possibility to do these projects while at the same time extending the
party lifestyle of a student that makes this the best city to live in. This
ease of living keeps the trains running quite at rush hour, and the
number of suits down. It keeps the parks bustling and events popping up. Berlin
without these people, and their shit art, wouldn’t be the place we all love. This
great big playground, where anything goes, as everything comes.
How much each
person works upon these little projects of theirs of course varies from case to
case. ‘No one has ambition here’ an ex-pat friend of mine who
had lived in the city for almost a decade said to me. ‘And that is more exhausting than
the relentless rush of places like London or New York.’
Indeed, I was to
find that when the language school and winter began to thaw, my energy to work
– to produce, to create, to better myself – flailed against everything else I
wanted to do. My former diligence evaporated while I whiled away hours in the
park.
Of course, some people
are busting a gut here. There are plenty of expats in Berlin (you understood, I
am as always, principally talking about just that particular wedge of Berlin –
excuse my limited range of vision) who are working much harder than they are
playing. Not everyone loves it. Not everyone feels like a king here. Not
everyone can keep happy when poor. A young blonde musician I met here (seemingly
a perfect candidate for the Berlin scene) had hated his first year here,
he said. He had been doing an internship at the company while at the same time
completing his thesis. He would work around the clock at the office
getting by and taking speed in the toilets. He had been miserable in the
city he said, he didn’t know anyone. He had no friends. He was always tired,
and almost killed himself with the stress of living. ‘I didn’t like Berlin for
at least a year and a half.’ Another time, he looked back with dreamy
nostalgic eye on his first months in Berlin, taking MDMA and dancing to 90s
music.
Speaking to CP one
evening, I got another story of the move to Berlin.
‘‘What are you
doing in Berlin?’ My friends ask me. ‘Surviving’, I tell them.’ There
was much of the daredevil lone wolf about him that I envied. In my free time I
yawned on the S7 to Marzahn reading Anna Karenina;
watched Buffy die Vampire Jagerin and ate kinder eggs. I
would look at my bulbous, fuddy reflection in the doors of the S-Bahn and
sneer at myself.
CP had a mystery to
him though. He spoke beautifully, the cantor of his voice rolled like
hills, and the words fell from his mouth preceded but sometimes
stumbling over one another; strong, and elegant words, that fell backwards into
the world, occasionally rising to a pitch that had them pirouetting
in the air for a moment, before spinning down into the wind.
‘I have always just
had enough for tobacco and drink and food,’ he told me. ‘And as long
as you have friends who can help you out with 50€ for the rent now and then you
will be OK. It is all worth it to be here.’
The highs and lows
of that first winter in Berlin weren’t as dramatic as theirs. My life however
did reach a fairly comfortable medium. Despite being cold and poor, things
began looking up. To my surprise, around the hours I was spending at the office
and the language school, and all in between, I managed to make room for
enjoyment and relaxation and indulgence. The grind, through habit,
became less relentless. Coming home after class, some nights Red would
be celebrating something and I would stay up and do cherry shots with her, and Smokie,
and one of her guys. And it would often turn out that I would be the last one
awake, drinking and smoking and laughing until the end.
Other nights, only
the girls would be home, or more often only Red. After struggling back to the warm
flat following a hellish long day I would pour whatever alcohol I could
find into a glass, throw myself into more comfortable clothes, and
then fall into the comfortable half egg shaped chair in our flat. Red
would pass me her joint and I would slumber as she told me about the television
shows she was watching and her latest drama. I wouldn’t have to understood
or respond for us both to be utterly content. Sometimes she would cajole me
into playing a board game or Pairs with her, which she called ‘Memory.’ She was particularly good
at this where as I, to my shock, found that I was terrible, and got
concerned that my brain power was dissolving. As a child I was a champion at
this game but couldn’t remember where any of the cards were further back than
one turn no matter how I tried. Red would either cackle with glee or shake
her head as if she was generally disappointed in me, depending upon
the extent of my folly. Soon – though always later than I expected, and far
later than I wished – these tourneys would come to an end, and we
would descend on to sofa. She would roll more spliffs, and I would
munch away at whatever was to be found on the table. Sometimes Red would fall
back to her secret cupboard in the kitchen and reveal a packet of three year
old chocolate. ‘My favourite!’ she would announce and lay them down
on the table. I rolled another cigarette, and as expected, the smoke went
fantastically with the chocolate.
As I got more
high my hand would stretch to them in quicker and quicker succession. Once I
went too far and she snapped:
‘Enjoying them
are you? They are my favourite, you know?
A shame and fear
rose up into my face and I was concerned that I had ruined it all and
wouldn’t now be able to enjoy anything. But the angst thankfully subsided,
as did my greed, and slipped back into contentedness. I could enjoy the
memory of the chocolate at least. I stayed my hand and let her pick at
them now and then. I poured myself some more Pink Sekt, and enjoyed the
taste of that. I reclined in the chair and rolled another cigarette. Red
would eventually go to her room and leave me there with the duty of
catching Milla and putting her to bed.
And who will put me
to bed?
I light another
cigarette and don’t think about it.
Bertie Digby Alexaner
Berlin 2014
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